by Gina Lyle, Norwegian Study Centre

The first page of E.M. Forester’s Howards End (1910) shows Helen writing to her sister while visiting the Howards End, and she immediately mentions a wych elm in the garden that she “loves already”. Old and immovable, the tree comes to represent continuity and stability for Helen at a time of great change in Edwardian England. It also has clear connections to rural tradition, as it holds evidence of folk superstitions. Mrs Wilcox explains: 

“There are pigs’ teeth stuck into the trunk, about four feet from the ground. The country people put them in long ago, and they think that if they chew a piece of the bark, it will cure the toothache.”

None of the other characters are very convinced about the effectiveness of the pig’s teeth…

by Beck Sinar, Norwegian Study Centre

The wych elm is one of those trees whose very name seems to hum with old stories, its syllables whispering of bendable branches, deep roots, and forgotten folklore. While its name often tempts modern readers toward witchcraft and sorcery, “wych” has nothing to do with witches at all. It comes from Old English wice, meaning “pliant” or “bendable.” This was a practical description—anyone who has handled the young twigs of a wych elm knows how supple they are—but like many old words, wice lived quietly for centuries before its sound-alike, wicce, the Old English word for “witch,” began to cast thematic shadows over it. By the time later folklore got hold of the tree, superstition and etymology had already begun their merry tangle.

Even the word elm itself carries deep linguistic ancestry. English inherited it almost directly from Proto-Indo-European h₁elmi- or elmi-, a root meaning “elm tree” that branched across Europe’s languages. From it came Latin ulmus, the source of scientific names like Ulmus glabra (“smooth elm”), as well as Old High German elm and Old Norse almr. English, curiously conservative in this case, barely changed the word over millennia, leaving us with a name that feels like a linguistic fossil still standing tall in the landscape.

The wych elm’s relatives appear across the continent, and their names tell a story of shared heritage. German’s Ulme and Dutch olm reflect the same ancient root as English elm, while the Slavic jilm preserves both the form and the age of the word. Lithuanian uosis and Latvian oša, though slightly further afield, still echo that original Indo-European sound. Meanwhile, words related to “wych” show parallel development: Old Norse víkr, connected to bending and flexibility, reinforces that early sense of a tree prized for workable, responsive wood.

This linguistic resilience mirrors the wych elm’s physical character. Long valued for its tough, shock-resistant timber, it supplied wheel hubs, coach frames, and agricultural tools across medieval and early modern Europe. Before the rise of iron-bound buckets, hollowed elm trunks served as durable water pipes, exploiting the tree’s resistance to splitting when wet. Its name, built from ideas of strength and pliability, fits its historical role perfectly.

Myth and literature, perhaps inevitably, grew around the wych elm just as its branches twine around the wind. In Welsh lore, elm is counted among the sacred woods associated with the Otherworld, sometimes standing as a threshold between worlds or as a guardian of hidden places. Across Britain and Ireland, old elms were believed to host spirits or serve as boundary markers—trees that knew more than they said. Shakespeare, too, found room for the elm in his imaginative forests: in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Titania names the elm as a companion to the vine, suggesting a tree hospitable enough to embrace other lives.

Today, encountering a mature wych elm—muscular branches, rough bark, a canopy filtering green-gold light—feels like meeting an elder of the landscape. Its name, layered with linguistic history and folklore, bends and flexes like the tree itself: ancient, adaptable, and quietly enchanting.